Talking to Lance Langenhoven

Please tell us a little bit more about yourself, where you come from & where you live now. There is no word limit. As short or as long as you want!

I’m from Cape Town South Africa. I moved to England & married Glynis (South African as well!) there in 1993. We moved to The Woodlands, Texas in 2001 where we are still living today.

What do you do? [your job, hobbies, etc. if you’re retired, what did you use to do and what do you do now]

I’m a commercial real estate broker. I love to play golf but do it very rarely nowadays. Love watching big sporting events like world cup soccer, all the tennis majors, all the golf majors, rugby world cup (when South Africa plays), Premier League soccer (Man United, Liverpool & a few others). I love being near the sea so at some point we’re going to be moving!!!

When & How did you first hear about Kiva?

I joined Kiva in 2008. I can’t recall exactly how I heard about it. I might have seen Bill Clinton talking about it on t.v.

Do you favor any particular lending theme? i.e. agriculture, retail, a particular country or groups of women?

I prefer lending to groups of women.

How do you decide who to make a loan to? [Do you research in detail or just pick the first four or five in the list?]

I filter by women and then by group and then I simply pick them as fast as I can. I do ZERO research on what they’re trying to do, where they live, what the money’s for, etc. I like to think of myself as the fastest lender in the world as loan approvals usually take less than a second!!! 😊

Have you been associating your loans with a particular team? [Kiva has thousands of teams]

I used to associate my loans with the Kiva Christians but going forward all my loans will be associated with the Bring Hope to the World team.

How soon after your loans have been repaid do you lend the money out again?

In the past I was bad about relending after being repaid. My money would sit in the account for many months before I loaned it out again. But, today I’m in there as soon as it’s been repaid and I get it back out into the field again. That helps us build the loan total for Bring Hope to the World as well.

Do you regularly add to your Kiva balance or do you just work with what is already in the account?

My company annually donates money to the Bring Hope to the World 501(c) 3 charity that we formed and 50% of that goes to the Kiva account. So, each year the account gets a single substantial boost. The other 50% we pay out in grants to other charities. Some of them are in the Houston region and a few in Africa.

Have you had many defaults [loans not fully repaid] and, if so, does it concern you?

So far I’ve made a total of 305 loans totaling $37,925 to 38 different countries. Actual investment is only $16,331 so far. Since 2008 I’ve lost a total of $54.38 which is 0.33% of the money I’ve put into my account. As a percentage of the total loan value it’s 0.14%. So, as you can see it’s a pittance and it does not worry me in the least. I’ve helped so many people that I’m not going to stop helping others because of such a tiny risk of loss.

Why would you recommend Kiva to others?

Kiva is incredible! They’ve used technology in such a clever way. To allow people to crowdfund the small loans of the unbanked poor around the world. They’ve taken Mohammed Yunus’ idea to a new level. Why should you do this? Well, you’re helping others which is a great thing and at such a low cost & risk to you. You can put a small amount of money in and loan it out and once it’s repaid if you need it again just cash it out. No harm, no foul. But, in the meantime you would be changing someone else’s life. Also, it takes so little effort…. just a few clicks on your laptop! What else can you do with so little effort, cost and risk yet has so much reward? I don’t think there’s anything that comes close.

How many of your friends have you convinced to be a part of Kiva?

Personally probably about six or seven people that I can think of right now. But, through our new Bring Hope to the World team I’m hoping we can convert thousands of people to join us on this great adventure!

Do you think the Bring Hope to the World Kiva team can reach $100M USD in loans by 2025? (this is our ambitious target!!!)

Yes. Absolutely. It looks like a big target but when you break it down it’s not that unreasonable a goal. If we managed to get $10M USD in team loans by the end of 2020 and our average loan repayment terms were 4 months (most of mine are like that right now) then we’d get paid back around $2,500,000 each month. If we then loaned that out for the remaining 48 months until 2025 we’d end up with $120M USD. The thing most people forget is that when the money is repaid you can loan it out again and it counts again!!!! So, with enough people joining and re-loaning out again it’s definitely do-able.

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